Feeding Bees With Fondant in the Top Bar Hive

Awhile ago, one of our readers—a top bar hive beekeeper named Gord who keeps bees in Ontario—mentioned that he was seeking out a good method for adding fondant to his top bar hives. Fondant—which is basically a soft, creamy sugar-water mix—is used by some beekeepers to offer their bees a supplementary food source in late winter/early spring or at other times when cold, wet weather or lack of forage places the colony at risk for starvation.

I asked Gord to get back to us when he found a recipe that he thought would work well in the TBH context, and he was kind enough to do so. Behold, his very useful guide on Using Fondant As Hive Insurance. The post appears on Gord's Seldom Fools Apiculture website, which I highly recommend for its good discussions of chemical treatments and other aspects of beekeeping that embodies a respect for bees.